This is Sunny, Rodney's brother. I LOVE him, he is soooo handsome!
Nothing too exciting is going on with my dogs at the moment, I'm not training them hardly at all, as am walking them for longer and just sitting by the river and letting them play! Have done hardly any obedience with the pup, however whenever we go to Susanne's she is brill and looks like we have done loads, which is great, unlike Tia, who you could do loads with, and then she would look like you hadn't done anything since the last lesson. Will start doing more when I finish work in July and go back to being a student - yay!
Myself, Lee and Jess have just got back from Scotland after seeing the litter of pups that Pam Duncan and Dane Redford had. Ahhh, the pups were just scrumptious, but this little boy right from when I first saw the pics of him just made my heart melt, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh so yummy I could eat him!!
Lee has been hoping to get a collie pup this summer and when I heard of this litter I thought it sounded just perfect, and in this litter there were 7 pups, 4 merles 2 tris and a black and white. So Lee has had the black and white, he comes down to Bristol in about 10 days and I can't wait (I think Lee is slightly excited too, lol) I hope Scandal likes him, as she can have a little play friend!
Thank you Pam for being so hospitable - it was so exciting flying up to Scotland, almost as exciting as seeing the puppies themselves. Or maybe I just get too excited by sad things (plane, not the pups!). Anyway yayyy I am happy Lee has his own puppy at last and even better we (when Lee gets a big van so can fit more than Jess, Copper, Rix, and all Jess's stuff in one car) can do some Scottish shows when Lee takes the puppy to visit his Scottish pals ;o)
I went to Worcester show with Jess as Lee had entered Rix but couldn't go. Set off far too early at 6.30am, which is slightly less ridiculous than the 4am we are setting off for flying to Scotland tomorrow!
The day didn't start well with Copper throwing up in the car on the way up... Jess's car, MY dogs bed!!! Luckily it was just grass he had eaten so wasn't too bad to clear up, which we (meaning Jess) cleared up on the hard shoulder - one good thing to come out of it is Jess now knows where her hazard lights are :) I did actually think I was going to be sick at one point, as I am hopeless with anything vaguely sickly, but lucky I was brave and was ok :)
Worcester show was lovely, Jess' Copper is working really well just poles and weave entries now. He had a toenail removed a couple of weeks ago but had an infection in it in the weeks before that, so that set him back with his training, he is a pain with his weavies, at Severnside beginning of May he was perfect in all of them getting fast entries, now he's like nope, 2nd pole will do. I think it will come with more practice, after all he's still a baby. He broke his wait in the 1-2 jumping last run of the day, I don't know who I was more cross with, Cop for breaking his wait, or Jess for not putting him back!!
Yesterday we started nose touch/clicker training his aframe and he loved it, so I think this should help bring his confidence back with running straight down into position.
Love this video still of him taking off so far away from the jump yet he cleared it effortlessly, such a lot of power in him.
I took Rix in pay on the day as they put the jumps down to medium, took his toy in and he was lovely, super fast boy and loved having his bally. Then last thing of the day was veterans, he had a super run and won it by half a second, not bad as he is 10 and a half now, he is running faster than he has done for years.
Bex had her first show back for 3 weeks since her season, she is working nicely, she is like my car - takes a while to get up to speed in 5th gear! She starts the course in 2nd or 3rd gear and by the end is up in 5th. In the jumping she got e'd on dad had food rather than toys to get her going and it flattens her, she is much better with toys. In the video of her 2nd run you can see how fast she comes out the tunnel on the last home stretch, she was really flying, dad just needs to find a way of getting her to start like that now! But she is only 2, she has gone up the grades so quickly I think it is easy to forget that this time last year dad had just won out of grade 2 and dad was moaning he would have to do the Novice Cup at the KC Fest but wanted to do the starters cup! He still has the Agility Club Starters final in July, which will be a bit weird seeing as they won out such a long time ago!
Well I have worked out how to get my vids to come out high quality, however they take up so much room! This vid was like 333MB or something crazy like that. I want a nice high quality movie that only takes up about 50MB max lol!
This is Scandal at Lowri's on Monday. I take her in with me when I go in as the different noises/dogs are really good for her, however she gets very bored when Rix and Tia have their needles in, so I do this kinda thing to occupy her - her 'toy' is a door stop, which she is obsessed with. Her and Tia go round trying to pull all the door stops out of the doors - I bet Lowri and Han can't wait for us to go lol!
They were really pleased with Tia so that is great. She had acupuncture in case she is still sore from running headfirst into a gate Monday morning (yes... the same gate that she has been running UNDER for the last 4 years). Ricky was really good too, he is working so well now.
Hopefully I will get a new vid of Bex on the weekend.
Well, first off, a lovely pic of my little princess - thanks Itty!
Secondly, I wanted to get some footage of what Tia is jumping like, so we can see what extension she has in her back legs when I went back to the specialists today. I put most of the jumps on small/medium and one on large, purely to see whether she'd go "ahhhh, big jump, hoomph", or extend.... She extended :o)
Here are some stills of the video footage, I am really pleased. I am training her once-twice a week on small-medium height and she loves it. We don't do weaves unless she walks through them, and we do slow seesaw and dogwalk. Her extension looks superb :o)
A quick vid of Scandal doing some contact training and Honey doing aframe and weaves. Honeys only been in training since the end of December! And Imogen's only 10! Another spaniel AND another child - ahhh!!! Luckily this one (child!) is well behaved :o) so I can cope!
This is filmed on my new camcorder, which is doing my head in. The quality on it is amazing when you first get the clips off (it's HD), but either when I use the Panasonic HD Writer that it comes with, VAIO Movie Story, Windows Movie Maker, or Adobe Premiere it totally messes up the quality, and puts it into SD format (4:3) rather than HD (16:9). Whyyy did my puppy have to chew my old camcorder up!!
Some people have asked how big Scandal is compared to Tia, so here's some pics I took a min ago... except getting 2 dogs to stand, next to each other, while I go to the side to take a photo, is quite tricky! But you can get the jist of it. She was 5 months last week, so I hope she has a bit of growing to do still. Tia is about 19.5".
Cant believe my gorgeous girlie is 5 months old today. She is so wonderful, I love her to bits, and I will be eternally grateful to Jackie and Ant for letting me have her.
Yesterday I went to the North Somerset show with Jess and Lee - Jess's springer Copper is back on form after having a baddy toenail removed a couple of weeks ago - just a couple of poles in the jumping but the fastest time by a second. The agility and ABC went slightly downhill after that with Copper I think increasing speed by several notches after realising his paw no longer hurt :o) the other two girls I train both had their 2nd show with their spaniels (what is it with me getting to train spaniels!!!) and Shona getting a clear with Keri in the 1-5 steeplechase and just out of the places. All 3 dogs weaved brilliantly so I am very pleased. The two little spaniels did fab contacts too, we won't talk about the big spannel Copper, who used them as a launch pad ;o) but as he hasn't done contacts for about 3 weeks I think the excitement got to him a little. Must say well done for his 2nd in anysize with Rickers on Sunday - Rix always enjoys his 'holidays'.
Anyway back to princess Scandal, I thought I would have her slightly more under control with a gentle leader on but even this couldn't mute her very loud voice! She is still refusing to hold a ball and watch agility but we will work on it.
I walked her round the show and she was great, although did square up to a few dogs who growled at her - she thinks shes a rottie I think! We then watched the tractor racing - I was majorly unimpressed that we had to watch this and thought it would be very boring but I was wrong, it was sooo cool, especially when they were swerving all over the track :o) it was definitely the loudest thing Scandal has ever heard, the noise was horrendous, (and it must have been pretty scary as we were stood at the end so had a big tractor coming towards us!) however Scandal was great, she watched them and when i got the toy out, had a good game. They were also clay pigeon shooting in a nearby field but I don't think she even noticed. I thought she'd be exhausted when she got home, but she wasn't, so we did some left and right wing wraps when she got home, and then did cant-catch-me-to-bring-me-in-the-house which was slightly annoying, but ever so funny.
Today, after as Angela put it "being a drama queen!!" about my poor finger, I was determined Scandal was going to learn that doors/gates do not open unless the pup sits, and she has to wait for my release command. Well after standing at the gate today very annoyedly waiting for her to sit, I gave her a sit command, slowly opened the gate, and she charged through before I could shut it, grrr, she made me jump she moved so quickly like her life depended on it! So then repeat the process and another 5 mins and we're off. I keep her on a long line for the first 5 mins of the walk (as that's where we're most likely to see someone) and so when I climb over the gate I make her wait and she now does it perfectly - yay :o) and then when I release her charges through at a million miles an hour. She's such a fun little girlie, I just love her so much :o)
Tia at Wallingford - pics by Nick Ridley - she's still a doofus but she looks happy :o)
WBSDS was somewhat eventful with the pup spending most of her time screaming like a banshee, and when I tried to restrain her to calm her down, she managed to flip over on to my back and claw me, grrr. Shes got enough attitude for all the pups in the litter, lol. My new video camera is meant to be arriving in the next couple of days or so, I hope it does, I've missed not beig able to film!
Going to the North Somerset show on Sunday, Garth got me some tickets so I don't have to pay, yay :o) gonna take the pup but she will have a gentle leader on this time so may have a tiddy bit more control.
Have been doing some of Susan Garrett's crate games, and also the "its yer choice" which I wouldn't say the pup considers a game, more like, "mother I hate you HURRY UP and give me the dam treat. She's very much a "yo dude" rather than a "mother may I" for those of you that have read Ruff Love. "Yo dude! I'm hungry!!! Feed me!!!"..... "Yo dude! I'm here! Pat me!".... "Yo dude! Let me out so I can go dig up the garden!".... "Oi dude! Open the damn gate so I can drag us all out the house so we get to the woods quicker!"
Actually it's made me realise that a lot of what Susanne (ob) talked about with me and Tia, is also identified in this book of Susan's, and also the quote that dogs are much better at shaping us than we are at shaping them (or in my case anyway). When Tia presents me with a toy, I am so delighted at the possibility that she might want to do some work that I practically leap out of my seat to do something, and she also knows that if she does her goofy smile, everyone laughs and she gets more strokes. And if she drops the ball in my lap enough times eventually I'll roll it back to her, so the fun begins. It's her deciding when she wants to play, her deciding when she's had enough (when she takes herself off with her toy to have a lie down) and this all translates in to her work.
